


A Pansexual Beach Filled With Idiots

by Forest_Girl



Series: Merstuck drabbles written at 3 in the morning [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Brief mention of pansexuality and trying to figure out who you are, Continuing this because friends, F/M, Gen, It's incredibly brief mentions of the later two, Like, M/M, Mainly in real life and not on here, Merstuck, Picture, a LOT of people wanted me to continue with this, a paragraph, and people, but I did get people wanting more, ikimaru, really brief, want more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forest_Girl/pseuds/Forest_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat Vantas hates the ‘family trips’ to the beach.</p>
<p>It’s not even that much of a family trip, it’s more so a week-long stay at a beach house that his father had rented out that’s filled with listening to Kankri’s insufferable ramblings and his father giving in his two cents sometimes, followed by Karkat screeching at the both of them to shut the fuck up.</p>
<p>He doesn’t like this part of the summer.<br/>~~~<br/>Inspired by this picture made by ikimaru: http://ikimaru.tumblr.com/post/90501761375/got-this-done-at-last-imsrghs-just-take-i-t</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Karkat Vantas hates the ‘family trips’ to the beach.

It’s not even that much of a family trip, it’s more so a week-long stay at a beach house that his father had rented out that’s filled with listening to Kankri’s insufferable ramblings and his father giving in his two cents sometimes, followed by Karkat screeching at the both of them to shut the fuck up.

He doesn’t like this part of the summer. At least twice during his summer break, he’d go down here with his family and just sit there and listen to ramblings that he desperately wanted to avoid. Its why, in an odd, convoluted way he loved school. Eight hours away from a house that was never quiet. If it weren’t for his headphones, Karkat would’ve been placed in a white wall patted room in a strait jacket long before he turned sixteen.

The only good part about these trips was that the view from the beach was incredible, especially during any sunset. If you were to go out the back of the house, there would be a small dock by golden sand and deep blue water. During the sunsets, the water would reflect hues of magenta, yellow, and fading cyan as the sky slowly turned to a pitch black.

In short, it was like a pansexual decided to throw up in the ocean. Another reason why he loved this beach, the house just made it a living hell.

He couldn’t tell any members of his family about what he was going through personally, and there were no friends for him to vent to, in or outside of school. If he told Kankri about his shifting view of his sexuality, he’d be subjected to an hour long rant on the differences between each orientation before being thrown of the shared room for triggering him. If he told his Dad, he’d risk getting thrown out because he and Kankri were like twins with twenty years in between them. They were so alike on their views and morals that if his brother kicked him out of his room, his dad could do much, _much_ worse.

The beach was a brief reprieve from the world surrounding him, the only true place he could go and not feel any rage from his family members or the precedents placed by society that just scream that he’s wrong, that he shouldn’t think that unless he wants to be hung up on a cross. No, on the dock that allows you only a few moments to feel like you’re invincible on the brink of land and water, the world can’t make him angry.

That is, until someone decides to splash him, hard. That’s when the beach loses its charm and Karkat is back to being an angry fluff ball.

“Okay, who the fuck did that?” His voice carries out loud across the water, and only the waves respond to his cries. He takes a breath to shout out again, only to have a small stream of water get shot right into his face. When the stream trickles to a stop, he looks down at the source. A round face with warm, red hair and teal eyes stare back at him.

“Did you just spit water in my face?” Karkat glares down at the girl, who just smirks back at him in response. He’s halfway tempted to kick her in the face or jump in and spit water in her face in retaliation until he notices one little thing. "More importantly, are you naked?" There’s no bra strap on her shoulder, and he can’t exactly see the rest of her since it’s hidden by the pier and the multicolored water.

That earns him a full out laugh, her lips barely concealing her teeth as her chuckles echo throughout the near-silent coast. The mystery red head pulls herself out of the water more, showing somewhat pasty white skin and teal colored nails. She isn’t naked (Karkat thanks every deity he knows for that). A seashell bra is covering her chest, and to Karkat’s surprise, they seem… real. Looking at her face again, there seems to be two blue… things hidden behind her hair. It can’t be piercings since they’d be too far away from the ear for them to stick out at that angle.

“You’ve got… something on the side of your face.” He says, gesturing to the general area where it was. When the girl tilts her head, she starts to grin, and Karkat can’t figure out why until she’s turned her head until it was more a profile of the left side of her face. That… that was a fin. A fin, like something you’d see on a fish or something, in place of where the ear would be on a normal human. Normal human… he realizes it too late that he should be running away, back to the house, when the tail comes out of the water violently, splashing him with another wave and knocking him off of the dock.

The salt water surrounds him as he lets out a little bubble of water as he tries to figure out which way led to the surface. His eyes burned as he opened them instinctually to help right himself, but all that accomplished was for him to see a face full of the red head’s leering grin as she leaned over him. He lets out another air bubble, flailing his arms in an attempt to get away, even though the girl (no, mermaid, start using that along with ‘The Bitch Who Killed You Because You Thought She Was A Pretty Nice Girl But Really She Was The Reason Why You Drowned’) wrapped her arms around your chest and propelled them up.

They broke the surface, Karkat coughing harshly as water left his lungs and precious oxygen entered. The girl slowly moved them towards the dock again, a fanged smile adorning her face as she pulled her upper body onto the dock, along with Karkat, who she placed on his back. She ducked down back into the water, her teal tail brushing against the sand as she turned around; about to swim away from her most recent and entertaining scare, when the boy’s coughing caught her attention.

“W-wait!” Against her better instincts, she turned back around, hoisting herself onto the wood structure again, her waist well above the water, and her tail curling up and out of the water, the fin just barely draping above the surface. “What… what’s your name?” The boy had flipped over onto his stomach, dark colored clothing and skin absolutely drenched in water as he panted, trying to get back the air he lost when he was startled.

The girl smiled again, leaning forward more and pressing her lips to Karkat’s. It was only brief, maybe a second long, but once she scooted back, her smile remained as she turned her head again, showing off her face fins as the flicked a little speck of water on his face.

“Terezi.” Slipped past her lips as she turned around, collapsing under the surface of the small waves and jetting off to deeper waters. Karkat stared at the retreating darker shape as the sun crept down beyond the horizon. Kankri called from the house, shouting that dinner was ready and that he would have to hurry unless he wanted the chicken to get cold.

Karkat stood up and turned back to the house, brushing his fingers over his lips, feeling the phantom pressure of Terezi’s against his. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be as bad.


	2. Why am I continuing this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat and Terezi learn more about one another, Karkat yells at his brother, and feet are maimed.

He went back to the beach the next day.

He wasn’t sure why he would. He could’ve died the previous day, could’ve drowned, his corpse would’ve been found on the shore about a day later with his lungs filled with water. He could meet The Thing again (Karkat wasn’t about to call the girl that nearly drowned him a mermaid, nor would he call her a girl. She was too… freaky to be a girl) and get another free drowning. Karkat Vantas, the gullible fuck who, after nearly dying on a dock once, tries to get killed again at the same location by the same girl!

Since the sun had been shining down with no interruption from any clouds, the dock was more than warm when he laid down on his stomach right on the edge. He looked down at the water, hoping to see some of fleeting image of The Thing coming up again, ready to leap out of the water, grab him by the shoulders, and drag him down. His focus was mainly on the water, and a small portion of his attention was devoted to swatting at any bugs that flew too close to his face.

So when a pair of feet suddenly appeared in his peripheral, he almost fell into the water without the aid of any part fish monster.

“Enjoying the waters?” Karkat groaned when Kankri sat down next to him, dangling his feet over the edge. He started praying that The Thing would come around soon and drown his brother, one less misery in his life. “I couldn’t help but notice that you were dripping wet and out of breath when you came back inside yesterday. I was just coming out here to make sure that you weren’t going to jump into the water with all of your clothes again. Do you know how long it takes to dry that out? Let alone how much damage it does to the polyester in you pa-”

“Jesus Christ Kankri shut the fuck _up!_ ” Karkat grabbed his hair and started pulling at it, grinding his teeth together and snarling at his brother. “I don’t _care_ about what sea water does to your clothes, I don’t _care_ about jumping in the water again, I’ve got no plans on intentionally doing so asshole, and I don’t _care_ about what you think!” Karkat closed his eyes, preparing for the onslaught of words that would spew out of his brother’s mouth.

It never came.

There was a shuffling of fabric and the sound of the wood boards creaking before another indefinite silence descended. It was only Karkat, the sound of the water sliding up against the sand, and the gulls circling overhead letting out and occasional caw. Karkat sighed, letting go of his hair and letting the tension ease out of his body. He opened his eyes

and was greeted by a leering grin.

He jumped back, using his feet as pedals to propel him backwards from her. She laughs in response, not a cute little chuckle or a giggle, a full out insane person’s laugh. The kind of laugh that, if you were to hear that in public, you’d get the fuck outta dodge because there’s an insane person next to you and they will probably kill you.

For The Thing, the full requirement was met.

“So who was that?” Terezi asked, looking in the direction where Kankri walked off to. Karkat balled his hand into a fist over his chest, gripping the fabric tightly as his heart slowed down from its frantic beating. He looked at The Thing again, same red hair, same teal eyes, same fish parts. However, instead of spitting water in his face again or hitting him with a wave of water, it indulged itself in small talk.

How cute.

“My brother.” Karkat’s voice is croaky, and he wets his lips and speaks up again. “You wouldn’t mind drowning him, would you?”

She has the discretion to giggle this time, not laugh and catch the attention of everyone in a mile wide radius. “Unfortunately, no, I only give one drowning a day to a land scuttler, and I got someone farther east today. So sorry to disappoint you!”

“Land scuttler?”

“It’s what we call you, or, what I call you guys, anyways.” She turns her head to the water, looking around like she’s scared someone might hear her. “Some of us call you land swimmers, but that doesn’t make sense to me. You look more like a crab scuttling on the ocean floor, with a little more grace of course, and smaller arms. You don’t even have tails to swim with!”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t swim. My brother’s on the swim team at our school.”

“What words are coming out of your mouth?” Terezi scrunches up her face in confusion before repeating certain words, stretching them out in the middle. “Brother. School. I know that a group of fish is called a group of fish, but you’re not fish.” She fakes a gasp, putting her hands up against her cheeks. “Unless you’re a shape shifter!” She reaches out, grabbing Karkat by the ankle and dragging him closer to the edge. Karkat flailed his arms, not expecting the sudden grab, and he tried to grab the splintering wood underneath him.

Terezi dragged Karkat until his lower half was dangling off the edge off the dock, his weight mainly supported through his arm strength. He struggled as Terezi started poking at his toes, looking at the part of his body at nearly every angle she could maneuver around. “Only shape shifters would have these little tiny useless things!” She said, using a coddling tone as she poked at the flesh before flat out laughing as Karkat grunted above her, struggling to keep himself from falling into the water.

“Didn’t you say you only did one drowning per day?” He flinched as her fingernails (or should they be called claws because _holy shit_ they are like tiny little knives god damn) poked a little bit too hard into the inside of his foot. “And if you keep poking my feet, which I need to walk properly so that nobody will question if I walked on a board of nails, I will kick you in the face.” She rolls her eyes at the threat before letting go of his feet, letting Karkat pull himself back up until he was seated on the dock instead of a hanging piece of meat.

“So, okay. A brother is someone who has the same parent as you.” Karkat looked at Terezi’s confused expression. “And a parent is the person who takes care of you, a dad or father is a male parent and a mom or mother is a female parent.” Seeing the confusion clear up, he continued. “A school is a big area where people go to learn things, like math and science. Mainly kids around my age, but they could be younger.”

“You land scuttlers use weird words. We don’t use school in that way, and I never heard of a brother.”

“Well, what words do you use that describe other mermaids that are close to you?”

“If I were to tell you, it would take an hour!” She rolls her eyes, pulling herself up again, but this time Karkat doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he moves over, giving her more room to pull herself up. “And besides, you are the only human here who can understand me. If I started explaining you what every mer-word meant, then it would look like your listening to a mermaid growl and click at you and you’re talking back to me in normal scuttle speak.”

“English.”

“Okay then, you’d be talking back to me in normal English. Also, you’re brother’s coming in from the right.”

“What?” Karkat turned his head to his right, not seeing anything. Then, he turned his head to the left, and he saw his black haired, pale brother walking along the coast with his head down, looking at his feet. Karkat swore under his breath before turning back to Terezi. “You have to go.”

“What? Why?”

“Because, if Kankri sees you, he won’t stop blabbing about you and then some news team will come and I might never see you again. Run, or swim, or anything! Just get away from the beach.” Karkat glanced at his brother before turning back the mermaid. “I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Maybe away from my house so that way we won’t be interrupted easily, but you have to go, preferably now.”

Terezi smiled one last time before turning around and submerging herself into the water, thankfully speeding away before Kankri could see her. The sound of his father calling out for lunch brought him inside, along with his brother, for a plate of grilled cheese.

“So, did you two find anything of interest while you were out?” Their father asked, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

Both boys said no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically a continuation of chapter 1, make of it what you will because after showing the first one to my friend he convinced me to continue so I'm doing two more after this that are all loosely related. If this story actually does get more recognition or if people want me to write more after chapter 4 (whatever that will be titled) I will continue it in a separate story, a part two or something from the series that this is from.


	3. We See What's Going on With Kankri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I CAN ACTUALLY EXPLAIN WHY THIS IS SO LATE
> 
> Okay, so, I finished this chapter MONTHS ago but my computer got infected with some nasty viruses and I couldn't post the chapter. Then it ended up just making my life a miserable piece of shit, so I went to Geek Squad to get it fixed. That took a week and then I FINALLY got it back only to discover that half of the chapter on file had been corrupted and I could not read ANY of it. So I had to work out the entire second half from memory. Then school started up again and I got busy with that.
> 
> SO in summation, I'm sorry that this is very late, I am finally getting this up (which I have been dying to do for a long time) and tomorrow I will post the final chapter, which isn't the greatest thing I've wrote. I will then work on a continuation with Cronus and how (in another picture Ikimaru made) Cronus became human because the artist herself explained how it happens.
> 
> Rant over, enjoy the long overdue chapter.

“Jesus Christ Kankri shut the fuck _up_!” Kankri watched as his brother gripped at his hair, his teeth barred as he closed his eyes, continuing to rant to his paler other. “I don’t _care_ about what sea water does to your clothes, I don’t _care_ about jumping in the water again, I’ve got no plans on intentionally doing so asshole, and I don’t _care_ about what you think!”

Kankri watched as his brother remained tense, and he stood up, walking away from his brother, who was having a temper tantrum. Honestly, all he was going to do was give him some good knowledge on how to care for his clothing. After all, not many people have the privilege to wear proper clothing without any holes or tears, how pitiful of them.

Now thinking of it, when has Karkat ever listened to him? Whenever he says that his brother should take better care of his hair, Karkat would come down with his hair in a poor representation of a bird’s nest. Telling him to clean up his side of the room that they share ends up with it being a post-apocalyptic waste land of dirty shirts and pants and scattered game cartridges, and telling him to hurry up so that they wouldn’t be late for school ends up with him taking as long as possible to get to Kankri’s car.

No, he’s never listened to his brother.

Not once in his life has his advice ever been listened to. Kankri finds a small pebble wedged into the sand, and he swings his foot forwards, spraying the sand in all directions as he kicks the rock. It gives him a small reprieve from his growing anger, and he finds another small solid object and kicks it again, same end results. He does it again, and again, relieving his anger slowly but thoroughly through the physical actions.

The fifth time he does it, a small seashell goes over a larger bed of rocks. A small click from the hard material hitting the rock is heard, and then followed by a yelp. Kankri startles, not knowing that there was someone else on the beach, and he quickly climbs over the rocks, about to apologize to the local/other vacationer.

When he looks over the rocks that is not what he sees at all. At least not completely. Brown hair slicked back and deep violet eyes stare at the little seashell that landed in his lap (that Kankri kicked over, that hit him, and a surge of guilt hits the sweater clad boy faster than any anger that his little brother grows inside his little heart). He rubs his head stubbornly, hissing at the little nick on his scalp, and his lips drawing together tightly makes the unlit cigarette in his mouth go nearly horizontal. He pulls back his hand and there are a few droplets of dark crimson blood on his fingers, he wipes them on his white shirt with a purple Aquarius symbol on the center.

That’s damn near the only normal thing about him.

His lower half is a scale covered tail, dark violet scales with a few lighter scattered amongst the light bunch. It twitches ever so slightly, adjusting itself on the mossy surface of the rock the boy (Mermaid? Merman? Kankri isn’t sure) is sitting on. The right half of the flat fin near the end is scarred, two jagged marks on the surface. Looking closer, the boy has two other fins on the side of his face, in the place of where his ears would protrude from his gnarled mass of curls. Small little purple bone plates come out of his back, kind of like the rigged back of a dinosaur. His arms are circled by purple circles, and his fingertips are claws, not black or yellow or anything like that, but another dark purple (apparently this thing has an obsession with the color purple).

Kankri shifts, trying to get a closer look at the boy without startling him, but the plan goes to shit when a piece of the rock that he had climbed on gave way beneath his grip, clattering down onto the boy below. While this one didn’t land on his head (it landed on his tail, actually, right beside the seashell). The finned boy’s attention snaps up and his eyes meet Kankri’s. The sounds of the ocean waters hitting up against the rocks becomes dull and low, and the air thickens with the tension between the two teenagers.

The merman flops off of the rocks and runs, Kankri stays there for a few minutes, wondering whether he was dreaming or not. He crawls down the rocks and turns back the way he came, not bothering on kicking any rocks or seashells, his eyes following his footsteps. He soon comes up to the house, right as lunch was being announced from his father, and he came inside with Karkat (who was still on the dock for some reason) and he is met with a table that has three dishes of grilled cheese sandwiches on them.

“So, did you two find anything of interest while you were out?” Their father asked, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

Both boys said no.


	4. End Act 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINALLY DONE.
> 
> But I'm creating another story later that continues what happened in this story and maybe adding some more pictures...
> 
> YAY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for Sollux's lisp because I wrote 'th' instead of 's' and it gets kinda difficult to read.

Terezi sped up, her tail lashing behind her as she headed towards the little coral reef that she and her moirail shared. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Karkat and his brother. That was still a weird word to her. Brother. The fact that land scuttlers have people related to them by blood and live with them with no conflict still surprised her. She would think more about what Karkat told her, but the site of her home underneath her takes up most of her thoughts.

While most unhealthy coral reefs would be an ugly yellow and black mix, the two Merfolk that inhabited the area made sure to keep the area healthy. Coral of reds, yellows and purples greeted her, along with all of the small vibrantly colored fish that occupied the small little alcoves that she couldn’t dream of entering. A large hole besides a large colony of bladed fire coral was where she lived, and soon she slunk by, being careful to not touch the cover to her home in fear of being harmed by the toxins that it emits from contact.

The tunnel always scared her, it was far too small for her, but for Sollux nearly nothing bothered him about the tight fit. Then again, he wasn’t scared of tight spaces. Thankfully, he had the kindness to place some small glowing pebbles into the sides of the tunnel the farther down anyone was to go, so pale blue lights would show the rest of the way down.

The room where the two of them lived was wide, small little trinkets that had intrigued them both. Two pairs of glasses, one having red glass and the other had one red lens and the other one blue. A few other sea shell bras for Terezi were hidden underneath the comfortable sand pile that she sleeps on, along with a few other personal items that she can’t even trust Sollux with telling him about.

Speaking of the twin tailed merman, he was fiddling with a few pieces of coral to make some sort of sculpture. Terezi slammed into him, scattering the pieces of the little sculpture, and then spinning around her moirail, creating a little whirlpool with sculpture shrapnel swirling around them.

“Sollux! You will never be able to guess what I did today!” Terezi said, stopping in front of her pale partner and placing her hands on his cheeks.

“Uh… you had another thuccethful FLARPing thethion with Vrith’ka?”

“Strike one.”

“You finally admitted that you are black for the juggalo freak?”

“Strike two, and no, I’m not black for him.”

“Uh… fuck what elthe could you be happy about?”

“I talked…” She paused for dramatic effect, making sure Sollux was paying attention. “To a Land Scuttler!”

“What?” Sollux widens his different colored eyes before taking Terezi’s hands and holding them against her sides. “No, no TZ you can’t _do_ that! If anyone bethideth me were to find out, you’d be dead right now.”

“Why is it not allowed for me to talk to one of them, that doesn’t make any sense!” She shakes off Sollux’s death grip and swims over to her pile. “He’s nice, certainly better than Vriska or Eridan, and honestly he’s more scared for me than anything else. He saw his brother coming and told me to run, he said that his brother was more of a concern that himself, and I think that’s true.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What’th a brother?”

“Ugh!” Terezi climbed onto her pile of sand, turning her back to her moirail and covering her eyes. “Does it matter? I talked to him and I felt really, _really_ happy when I did, okay? I’m going to meet him tomorrow… Maybe.”

The room was silent for maybe half a minute before Sollux spoke up. “Oh my fuck you are red for him.”

“What?” Terezi bolted up, turning towards Sollux with a red face. “I am not, I repeat, _not_ red for a Land Scuttler! No matter how nice he is or how many times he talks to me I will not be red for him.”

Sollux chuckles before heading to the entrance. “Yeah, that’th what I thought when I met FF. Now look at uth. You’ll thee the truth after a few more meetingth.”

“So you’re not going to stop me?”

“Nah, rather not, you’d get away from me eventually.”

Terezi plops back down, disturbing some of the sand surrounding her. She sighed as she thought about that stupid dock, that stupid human that she had nearly drowned, her stupid, _stupid_ emotions.

She groaned, picking up some of the sand around her and dumping it over her head, effectively burying herself. She made sure that she could breathe before trying to fall asleep, avoiding any responsibilities that she had for another time.

**Author's Note:**

> It's basically a head cannon of mine that, in order for merfolk and humans to talk to one another, they need to kiss. Like, they exchange their native tongue by literally using their tongues. It's kind of stupid but I like it.
> 
> Anyways, yes! I will make stories of all the other pictures ikimaru made for Merstuck, they were just to interesting to pass up. This one is based off the first image only.


End file.
